John Portmann

When Bad Things Happen to Other People

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies", Gore Vidal once observed. It's funny, it's terrible, and it's true. What is it in human nature that makes us derive pleasure from others' -- even friends' -- suffering? John Portmann explores this all-too-human foible -- what the Germans call Schadenfreude -- in the first book ever written about this universal emotion.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis
• Seitenzahl: 264
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Juni 2000
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 227mm x 154mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 367g
• ISBN-13: 9780415923354
• ISBN-10: 0415923352
• Artikelnr.: 21609724

Autorenporträt

John Portmann has studied at Yale, Cambridge University, and L'ecole des hautes etudes in sciences sociales in Paris. He received his Ph.D. in philosophical and religious ethics from the University of Virginia, where he studied under James Childress, Daniel Westberg, Richard Rorty and Patricia Spears. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgements
Introduction The Sometimes Sweet Suffering of Others
Key to Abbreviations
I. When Pretty Bad Things Happen to Other People
1. Much Ado about Nothing?
2. Explaining Schadenfreude
II. When Reallly Bad Things Happen to Other People
3. The Meaning of Suffering
4. Wicked Feelings
5. Celebrating Suffering
6. Punishment and Its Pleasure
7. Cheering with the Angels
8. Outlaw Emotions
Conclusion The Moral Problem of Schadenfreude
Notes
Works Consulted
Index